Good morning folks!

Twice in one month! I know, I’m excited too!

I was taking sometimme to go through my saved emails and notes from the last few months and was having a conversation with a colleague at another University when I was reminded of some excellent advice from a friend at Oregon State about working toward compliance with the Professional Licensure regulations. Reni Powell, the Assistant Director, Program Management and Compliance at OSU, developed a process that both brings the University in to compliance with the regulations quickly as far as required notifications and disclosures, as well as maintains
compliance with NC-SARA policies on licensure programs and disclosures without having to add too much additional work to her and her staff’s already full plates:

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Something we kept at the forefront while developing the institutional processes, policies and protocols for providing licensure disclosures was not to get too deep into the woods with facilitating the requirements. Simply stated, we (the institution) have no way of knowing the specific state or territory that a (prospective/enrolled) student intends to obtain licensure, so why not provide the licensure disclosure to any prospective/enrolled student of a program that 'facilitates the educational requirements for professional licensure, regardless of reported location, and let them review the details associated with the state(s)/territory(s) to which they want or need information on.

So here is the framework: Public vs Individual (prospective vs enrolled for each).

Public Notification (prospective/enrolled students) = licensure disclosure website

Individual Notification (prospective students) = recognizing a student as prospective until they register for their first term of courses, at which time they become an enrolled student. Therefore, the touchpoints for prospective students are:

• Direct Contact (i.e. phone, email, in-person) – difficult to ensure notification is provided; but do our best to ensure licensure disclosure notifications, knowing that we cannot obtain acknowledgement of receipt here.
• Request for Information (RFI) pop-ups (throughout the university wherever and inquiry about the applicable program can be made; not just Ecampus) – here, when a student selects an applicable program that leads to licensure, we can force an acknowledgement receipt from the prospective student before the request is accepted for submission, which in turn provides us a date/time stamp (to confirm receipt acknowledgement of said student) should it be needed for legal purposes down the road. The notification drives the
  student back to the public licensure site.
• Admission application (online portal) – runs a similar process as the RFI to confirm receipt from prospective student when they select an applicable program. The notification drives the student back to the public licensure disclosure site.

So, here's how it works. A prospective student is interested in a Master of Counseling - School Counselor program that facilitates the educational requirements for a School Counselor license in Oregon. They use the RFI to inquire about the program and when they select the M.COUN – School Counselor program as the "program of interest" within the form, the following message appears:

"Learn more about how this program facilitates licensure with the U.S. state(s)/territory(s) where licensure is intended." Followed by a check box to acknowledge [ X ] "Yes, I have read the requirements for licensure."

The checkbox is a required field and must be checked in order for the RFI to be submitted. The exact same message appears within the admission application and the checkbox must be checked in order for the admission application to be submitted.

Individual Notification (enrolled students) = if it's determined that our program no longer meets the educational requirements for licensure within a given state/territory, then all students within that program will be notified (within the 14-day required time period via email) which state(s)/territory(s) this applies with a recommendation to contact their advisor immediately to discuss how this may/may not affect them. Thus allowing the student to determine if this is applicable to them or not. And, since notification is sent using the students' institutional email address, we have a date/time stamp recording that the notification was sent and to whom.

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While Reni admits that this will likely need some tweaking in the future as more information is learned about some of the licensure programs or as they learn more about student’s movements/changes in location, this should be a very easy process for any of us to adopt. A process like the one outlined above reduces the amount of research required, and allows you to focus instead on the communication aspect of the regulations (including communications to current and prospective students, as well as internal communications to the various programs and departments to ensure they also assist in the University remaining compliant) making this a more viable process to manage/maintain. Additionally, in agreement with a sentiment echoed by the College of Engineering and the College of Law on the Boulder campus, a process like this assists us in the parts of with a sentiment echoed by the College of Engineering and the College of Law on the Boulder campus, a process like this assists us in the parts of our universities missions and visions that speak to fostering student success by giving them the knowledge and tools to succeed in the wider world beyond our universities and Colorado.

Hope you’re all doing well.

Erika

Erika G. Swain
Interim Assistant Director for State Authorization
Office of Academic Affairs
University of Colorado System
e: swaine@cu.edu
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Assistant Director for Compliance and Authorization
Office of Data Analytics | Office of Institutional Research
University of Colorado Boulder
e: Erika.Swain@colorado.edu
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o: (303) 735-8184
c: (518) 637-9785